


A Shape On the Air

by clutzycricket



Series: For and Against the Devil [8]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, The Night Shift (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rhaenys is a weird even for Targaryens, ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-11 12:39:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11714571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/pseuds/clutzycricket
Summary: Companion/Side piece to Cast the Compass, explaining what exactly is going on in San Antonio towards the end of the Mockingbird investigation.Turns out, an alarming amount. Notably, an evil stepmother, something killing strays, and TC poking things with sticks.(Rhaenys would apologize to Jordan and Topher for TC's "This is how magic works" lessons, but, well. This is probably the better ending.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ...I may post one or two bits as it goes, but this is the last multipart story planned for for and against. Anyone clicking over from the ASOIAF side, this is a radical enough AU you don't have to worry much, though Game of Thrones Show Only fans may be confused?
> 
> Night Shift fans, basically, one of the other characters went into not-actually-hiding, figured it was far enough from New York, and is serving as magical troubleshooter. (Showing up in bits across a few fics, most notably Different Kind of Danger, and a few Night and Chaos stories.)

While Rhaenys knew, objectively, that there were enough types of magic in the area to fill an encyclopedia, it didn’t really click until the incident with the sorceress who tried to kill her stepdaughter.

  


Which, fair, she’d lived in San Antonio for about a year, and most of it was working or trying to deal with the Stark Sisters and Blue’s mess. Then the sniper, and TC’s breakdown. (Which lead to loads of crashing on her couch. She didn’t mind quite as much, since TC didn’t use up her shampoo, and brought in groceries.)

  


So she’d never had time to poke around, aside from the handful of introductions her mentor back on the West Coast had made for her.

  


There were hints, here and there, even at work- the slightest brush against her senses, the feeling of something pressing against the back of her neck. Charms and bracelets with music just a little off. Patients who needed iron and a subtle “back-off” spell. (Occasionally, she’d need to go with the shadowy vines of the Ways and having Trys grump his way through construction permits. Not often.)

  


The sickly, cloying scent of molasses and feel of rotting grapes made her tilt her head and try and source the magic. She’d gotten a bad hex on her radar earlier, but  _ then _ she’d gotten a boy who wanted to play Harry Potter with his sister’s knitting needles.

  


Really, she thought, what fourteen year old needed carbon steel needles?

  


Now that was dealt with, she went to track the spell. She wasn’t terribly worried- if it was a blatant monster with teeth bigger than her head, well, she worked with enough clever people who could usually tell when something was not right. (Also, she had a habit of forgetting subtlety. Considering the trouble her People Hoard tended to get into, she was allowed to be blunt every so often. And since she didn’t generate paperwork and healed the bruises in a blink.)

  


And the source of that hex was nearby, and the badly grounded wiring feeling of a nasty spell was building, waking up slowly, like a tsunami. It was angry, and desperate, ready to swallow up its target and brush aside everyone else.

  


Rhaenys didn’t bother with finesse when she grounded it, pretending she was merely resting against the wall. If that method was prone to causing a great deal of pain to the original caster...

  


Whoever cast it, it was nasty enough that the original target would have been dead, as well as any emerging psychics or talents who didn’t know how to protect themselves. And it probably would have splashed whoever was nearby, including anyone too ill or injured to protect themselves. In a fucking hospital.

  


Rhaenys Targaryen, in the guise of human Beth Blackwood, wound through the people with the air of a dragon in her lair, a sharp smile on her face. 

  


Jordan looked at her and sighed, wondering if it was worth it to pull the shorter woman aside. “What is it and how do we keep it from causing problems?”

  


“Well, I might have directed it to something that already went kaput,” she said, softly. “Did anyone suddenly get a massive headache?”

  


“Jennifer Prescott, stepmother to the girl Gwen brought in two hours ago,” Jordan said, furrowing her eyebrows. There were a few of the staff giving them worried looks, possibly because of past rumors.

  


Again, she tried being subtle, but sometimes she also liked not being crispy barbeque.

  


“Was something wrong was the girl right before then?” she asked, trying not to step on toes.

  


“Cardiac episode… wait, are you saying the stepmother  _ caused  _ it?” Jordan hissed, trying to keep her voice down.

  


“Possibly… I’d need to figure out what is going on,” Rhaenys said. “What’s that quote about bricks and clay?”

  


“Casey’s best friend came with her,” Jordan said. “Well, met her here. She’s in the waiting room- Jackie, I think? Pretty level-headed kid, brought Casey’s meds with her.”

  


“Shout if I’m needed,” Rhaenys said, wiggling her nose suggestively. Jordan sighed.

  


“Let me know if you summon the armies of hell,” was all she said.

  


Rhaenys snickered. “I’d need a Hand to do that,” she said dryly. “And shouldn’t I be tossing it on Toph?” She tried to keep it light, not poking at wounds. Jordan didn’t know the whole thing. (Okay, she’d been reading The Dresden Files when she thought Rhaenys couldn’t see. Rhaenys had blinked, sighed, and wondered if she should leave Constantine in her locker. Slightly more accurate.)

  


“Oh, right,” Jordan sighed. “Well, that’s a relief.”

  


Rhaenys smiled a bit, that same dragon smile, as she went to the waiting room, such as it was. 

  


There was one girl with an afro and jeans with muddy knees there, clearly messing up on some game on her phone. Rhae sat next to her, watching the look of terror, and adding in what Jordan hadn’t said. 

  


“She’s holding on,” Rhaenys reassured her. “Thank you for bringing in her medicine.”

  


“I know that… that it can interact weird, and I couldn’t remember everything, so I just grabbed it out of my car,” Jackie said, looking over her knees. She'd curled up, probably from fear, possibly helped by Prescott's damn spell, possibly because Rhaenys knew her own magic wasn't very soothing right now. “She’s been sick since… for a while.”

  


Since the stepmother came into the picture, Rhaenys suspected. “Do you know exactly what she’s being treated for?”

  


“They don’t know- she faints, sometimes, or can’t breathe. She’s tired a lot,” Jackie said. “Threw up blood once, which freaked everyone out. She gets headaches.”

  


“Her stepmother is here,” Rhaenys said delicately, just a hint of suggestion to push everything along. Jackie’s face hardened.

  


“That bitch? Probably hoping Case doesn’t make it. She met Mr. Prescott a year ago, and they got married ten months ago. Always treats Case like shit, makes it seem like she can’t do anything right, and any time she tries to tell her dad, there’s Jennifer, making him her puppet.” There was a streak of anger there, and worry. None of Tyene’s brand of sensitivity, though, so she probably wasn’t aware of how on the nose her phrasing could be.

  


“Anything about you?” Rhaenys asked.

  


Jackie blinked. “Yeah, tries to say that we shouldn’t hang out, but Mr. Prescott didn’t say anything yet. How’d you know?”

  


“Psychic,” Rhaenys half-lied, half-teased. Jackie shot her a look, but didn’t ask. “And thanks- you just let me know what to watch out for.”

  


Rhaenys walked back to deal with Jennifer Prescott.

  


~

“You do know I’m hardly an expert in the things all the various magical families are into, right?” Beth said into the phone, picking some of the rosemary from the plant on the window sill. She had a stack of spice jars next to her, spread over the warm wooden counter and the rest of the prep work laid out in various poses around her. She tended, she said, to bake when stressed, a habit taken from growing up in two households full of terribly impractical people who forgot eating for the sake of their goals. She prepped after work, a practical way of clearing her mind and grounding herself. Occasionally it meant a large tin of baked goods or a pot of stew found its way into the break room, ingredients neatly labeled.

  


TC looked up, eyes curious. The conversation kept on for a bit, and he started pouring the batter on the stove.

  


““No, I’ve heard nothing, but I don’t go out much, and not usually with blood sorcerers,” Beth said, before pinching her nose. “Dammit, how did Blue find out? I’m fine, Jon, I’m not spun out of glass. The parasitic little… I am totally allowed to make height jokes… look, she has no magic to hit me with, and the cousins helped with security. I’ll be fine. Best of luck, and please don’t get put on any sacrificial altars…again.” With that, she hung up.

  


“So, what did you do?” TC had decided to stop by after his latest search and rescue job, and was currently making pancakes. She decided she wanted the fluffy caramel-studded goodness enough not to complain.

  


“I… did a thing,” Rhaenys temporized. TC merely looked at her. “Severed her from being able to access her magic, which will probably end badly for her. Love magic and blood magic both tend to draw enemies and people you’ve fucked over.”

  


“Huh. Please tell me you aren’t feeling guilty about that,” TC said, piling the pancakes on a plate.

  


“I have apple butter,” Rhaenys said, thoughtfully. “And I’m not, exactly, but I wish I could have done it in a way that wasn’t a death sentence. Sometimes there are just no good options.” She pulled out her earrings, letting her illusions drop. He’d gotten used to it quickly enough, and the state of the vines tangling through her hair were going into his mental demonology index as “trusting, slightly exhausted”. It was almost as big as sign as the ratty band shirt and cut offs she was wearing.

  


“Sides, from how it turned out, this might not have been her first time,” TC mused. “Someone might not have been as lucky as the girl and her dad. He was next, right?”

  


“Being treated for insomnia,” Rhaenys confirmed. “There’s a half-selkie Jon’s partner knows, apparently she’s going to check. Apparently there is a deeply fucked up, even more than mine, family who likes to kidnap little girls who have knacks and talents. The ones who don’t even have a family tradition, or any sort of official contacts. Garcia apparently thinks that they’re magpies, thin-blooded fey or some sort of demonspawn clinging to whatever power they have. Prescott might be a daughter of the family.” There had been a bottle filled with broken glass in her purse, the sort used in some sorcerous traditions. When she’d mentioned that to Jon, he’d gotten terribly hunting hound on her.

  


“If they’re clinging to power, why not steal kids with more juice?” TC asked, scratching his head as he tried to work that out. He’d heard enough from Arya and Rhaenys about it to figure out that power was one of the two big factors, when magic was involved.

  


“Well, better security spells- the potion glass trick they use wouldn’t last a candle against a greenblood, much less one of the great families,” Rhaenys mused. “Plus, taking an old family- the Rogeres, the Mormonts, the Spottswoods- would bring networks down on their heads. They might try it, once in a while, if it’s an unclaimed child.” Marei Grey, who was almost certainly a child of Tywin Lannister and her call girl mother, would have been a perfect victim, if someone like that had risked coming into the city when she was growing up. “But a lot of cities and communities do have networks in place for that sort of thing. So if someone does go missing, their parent or loved one can turn to the local powers.”

  


“That’s comforting,” TC said, flipping the last pancake onto his plate. 

  


“I’m a never ending source of cheer and light,” Rhaenys confirmed, wondering if syrup would be too much. “How’s the search and rescue going?”

  


He took a moment, and Rhaenys paused at putting on some butter- she’d decided against the syrup for the first one. “Okay, that isn’t a good sign.”

  


“No, no, we got someone out, just the normal consequences of wandering out away from the tourist areas,” TC said. “But there’s been a rise in missing people just south of the city. One of the other teams found a pile of bones that might have been one of them.”

  


“Bones?” Rhaenys tilted her head. “I wasn’t aware the elements were that efficient.”

  


“They shouldn’t be- some of the stuff found was from a vic who vanished about three days ago, and the bones were crunched up.” TC showed remarkable nonchalance, and she wondered a little bit about the reckless streak he was working on. Was it a full-fledged death wish? She thought he’d slowly been working on that, but she knew recovery was full of bad days. Weeks. Career choices. “Shitty way to go, you know?”

  


“Yeah,” Rhaenys said, thinking. “Tee, be careful?”

  


“What, you think it might be something…” he made what would in other circumstances be a hilarious ‘tah-dah’ gesture. 

  


“Up my side of the street? Possibly,” she shrugged. “A nest of strix would be nasty, but I can’t see them in the desert, they need their light proof rooms. Only reason I’d think about it was that I know that some of the local mages up in Detroit stopped a nest a few weeks back. Apparently they’d been bouncing around for about twenty years, ‘til the local wolves got them.” There had been wonderfully snarky comments about murder castles and gentrification that made Laurel Rogere flush, according to her distant-cousin Lucas. 

  


“Someone fleeing from that?” TC offered.

  


Rhaenys shook her head. “Kendra’s too good at her job for it to be likely, unless it was someone who already peeled off before her pack got wind of it.” Which wasn’t likely- that mess was on the Vegas and Berlin mages, from what she heard, but the old nest in Europe had been culled over fifteen years ago. “Strix don’t tend to live long lives. Vetala, maybe, but I don’t know terribly much about them.  Nachzehrer… isn’t likely, just yet. If a plague comes by...  ”

  


“You are an encyclopedia of all the fun ways to die, aren’t you?” TC asked, a faint smile visible through the scruff. She grinned at that.

  


“I was nearly an epidemiologist, but there was the tiny issue of my fake name and my fear of flyng,” Rhaenys sighed. “Arianne got me a bacteria plushie when I went to school, trying to encourage me to go for it.”

  


“Is there anything I should know about them? Just in case they try to bite my face off?” TC asked, before taking a big bite of pancake.

  


“My family or the monsters? ...Okay, that was too easy. It’s  _ probably _ a culebra,” Rhaenys said, slicing hers into tiny bits. “We’re technically in their zone, though I know Rosie and her lot don’t like them. Or maybe… huh. I’ll talk to Rosie, see if she knows anything.”

  


“A snake?” TC paused. “Nope, not going to ask. At all.”

  


“Relax,” she said, ruffling his hair as she went to fetch some orange juice. “I am far more terrifying than shapeshifting snake vampires..” 

  


“...Is it bad I’m actually relieved by that?” he said. She smiled and might have put a tiny sway in her hips as she went to the fridge. Might. He was aware that they had a weird little game going on, but neither of them were aware of all the rules yet. Which both made them hard to break and meant he wasn’t sure which ones would actually be bad if he broke them. “And are all of those vampires?”

  


“...Fair point. I think I might have an old residency bias,” she admitted. “All Twilight jokes aside, vampires are more Northeast or LA, unless you get one running a cult in the woods. Plus the shapeshifters I knew were all genetic and easy to find. It isn’t an ahool, obviously, but if it is working in rural areas, shapeshifters are a bit more likely. I know the local groups like to complain about strays.”

  


“I hate you,” he said, before taking a massive bite of pancake. She grinned.

  


“Practice with my crossbow!”


	2. Chapter 2

It had taken a cranky text from Rosie, a fairly slow night that involved no trips outside, and the chance to take a break without hiding before she broke and called Renly.

“A grave, a grave to put these lovers in, but bury my lady at the top, for she was of noble kin,” she sang into the phone, ignoring Kenny’s confused look. She took a bite of her lo mein.

“Rhae?” Renly said, sounding sleep-mussed. She raised her eyebrows- he’d been at Comic Con for business, it was before midnight for him, and really, he’d dropped in enough at her during med school she cared… not at all.

“How is my second favorite rumor hound?” she asked, ignoring the sounds of the Tyrell boy in the background. Not that she minded that Renly was gay, but she was always slightly fuzzy on when they started dating. (She had a feeling it was while Loras was a freshman, and Renly was a TA, but like all awkward family things, she left it alone. Less likely to get her stabbed.)

“I thought I was your favorite in all things,” Renly said, dryly. “Oh, by the way, the Netflix thing is still happening. Casting is locked and being announced tomorrow.”

“Renly, I love you like the slightly irritating cousin you are, but my brothers are always going to be my favorites,” she said. “Aegon tackled Euron Greyjoy to defend my honor. And Jon’s a puppy.” Literally. “Also, video game adaptations suck. I’m pretty sure it’s a law.”

“They said comic book adaptations were trash, then we got Nolan Batman,” Renly pointed out. She grinned.

“Fair point,” she said. “Not what I was going to ask about, but fair.”

“And I was going to tell you who was playing Chaila,” Renly said, and she could just imagine him shaking his head.

She weighed the need to use that little bit of info as a bribe tonight, decided it wasn’t likely, and asked, “Right, did you hear the news out of Detroit?”

“Yes,” Renly said, through his teeth. “Stannis the Mannis, very fond of telling me that sort of thing.”

“Any chance there could be another?” she asked.

“The Magic 8 ball is going to say… no,” Renly answered, and she heard the sound of a glass clinking. Water, probably, Renly didn’t drink, not after growing up with Robert. “Stannis was part of the investigative commision, with that irritating wizard sort from Boston, the one who looks like a classy, classy dom. Also Aly Rogere. They managed to find evidence of a splinter group back in Europe, but they stayed in Albania and were caught by the local version of the goldcloaks.”

Rhaenys tilted her head, trying to remember who he was talking about, before focusing on the rest of the message. She’d ask Asha if she couldn’t figure it out. “Still early days, though. And Rogere? You mean Laurel’s kid, not one of the Carolina ones?” The daughter of the mage responsible for the mess back in Vegas?

“She wanted to clear her family’s name, and Stannis rechecked it,” Renly said. “Why, do you think you have a nest?” He sounded concerned, and she fought the urge to remind him that she’d dealt with worse. Fostering Renly’s more human impulses was a good thing- there was enough Targaryen blood in him to fuck with his head. See: Robert and his self-destruction, and Stannis rigidly not being… demonic didn’t ever sit properly, but then again, Aegon.

“I doubt it, but it didn’t hurt to check it out,” Rhaenys said, rolling her shoulders. Something was sticking in her craw about TC’s story, and there was enough Martell blood in her to want to double check on it. “Already texted Ari and Trys.”

“Send me the details and I’ll see what Loras and I can figure out between us,” he said.

“Tell him I said hello, and that I don’t hold his sister against him,” she said, for form’s sake. (She really, well and truly, did not like Margaery Tyrell. The syrupy little witch blurred the line between politeness and a mask. Also, patronizing as fuck. Possibly it was the Tyrell-Martell rivalry.)

“I’ll tell him the first,” he said with a laugh.

Kenny looked at her as she pensively chomped on the lo mein. “Anything we need to prepare for?”

“I don’t think so,” Rhaenys said, not quite ready to slip back into being Beth. “Something TC warned me about.” At Kenny’s… oh. “He likes stopping by for food.”

Kenny clearly didn’t believe her.

“Apparently someone’s been tearing tourists to pieces and leaving piles of bones,” Rhaenys added. She took a large bite of her noodles for effect. “I’ve sort of been doing secretary work about this sort of thing since I was a kid.”

“I’m kind of disturbed the idea isn’t having an effect on you,” Kenny said. “Also, got to be useful.”

“I grew up studying demonology texts,” Rhaenys said, shrugging. “As long as the bones aren’t bubbling sacks of possessed and rotting flesh, I’m good. Also, they’re not sheep.”

“...Sheep?” His expression was wonderfully skeptical.

“I don’t like sheep.” She shuddered. “Evil, evil things. Kind of like moose, but smaller, slower, and stupider.”

She could see the moment where he decided not to ask. Which was good, because she did not like to talk about seventeen year old Rhaenys and her bad decisions. She checked her texts- nothing from Jon, who was still in New York chasing the Littlefinger/Mockingbird. Aegon was silent, but she could go weeks without hearing from him. One of Mom’s Interchangable Emma’s- this one signed the text, bless Foggy Nelson’s heart- let her know Mom had dealt with with the latest evildoer who tried to intimidate her. And that her stepfather told him to text Rhae, because they were only semi-certain the group was local.

Mom would have called once someone pointed it out, but her not realizing that she should do it meant she was getting a visit tomorrow or that Mom was ready to crash. She’d text her stepfather and ask.

Or find out when someone crashed on her couch.

She heard the footsteps. “And our night just picked up.”

~

The door was heavy, wood and iron and collaborative spellwork. It wouldn’t keep the worst of the monsters out, but it would help quiet her nerves. When she was tired, that was really all she gave a damn about.

She still heard the thud, and Balerion jumped off the counter with a hiss, yellow eyes narrowed and black fur puffed up.

“Oh, hush, you fey fright,” Rhaenys said, grabbing the baton she kept from a self-defense class Obara had talked her into.

The cat didn’t sniff deliberately to spite her, she told herself, walking to the door with a bit of nervousness. Really, it was probably one of her cousins, with a message from Mom- Little Bit never could stick a landing, she’d be on dish duty if she kept this up. Neighbors could see her door, and trading products from her garden wouldn’t keep them all from wondering.

The man slumped over the doorway and knocked into her knees.

“And this isn’t good,” she told herself. TC was here, and there was his motorcycle, which her mind had clearly filtered out. She scowled down at him, wondering what the hell she should do.

Well, obviously, take him inside. She set aside the baton and looked at TC, who was a good deal taller and heavier than her. Blessing absently the practices Nym had drilled in her, she used a combination of magic and physics to get him from the entryway to her couch without dragging him too much.

“Why’d you come here?” she asked, sliding her hair out of her face. He looked half-dead, and Balerion was sniffing at the blood trail.

She muttered a scouring charm, reflecting that she should probably burn that welcome mat. Hopefully they would get a good late-summer storm for her path.

TC’s shirt was a wreck of cotton and gore- she couldn’t smell ruptured bowels, which was good, but there were ragged furrows, a chunk of his shoulder turned to salsa, and what looked like a nasty case of road rash.

“At least you wore a helmet,” she sighed. That was the only thing going for him, right now.

Balerion let out a little yowl. Did the hellbeast finally realize it was his favorite bacon source bleeding out, or…

She cast a quick and dirty spell, swearing at the result. Focus on making him comfortable enough to ride this out, then call Obara.

“Good news- I think it’s safe to say you are going to live, and live without a sunlight allergy,” she said, brightly. “Bad news, I’m going to have to tell a hell of a lie, thank you.” She paused, tilted her head, and swore. “And I’m going to have to be very, very careful how I tell Toph and Jordan about this, because I will be a dead dragon otherwise.”

He groaned, and she went to get water for tea. Lavender and chamomile, then the mint that grew wild in the dried creekbed after she’d forgotten to pull the pots before that storm. (Whoops.) She’d need to make a simple cooking mix- rice and beef broth might work, salt and… shit, she didn’t remember.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she said. “Tee, I hate you so much right now, if you die I am reanimating you so we can all scream at you.”

Pomegranate for transformations, she had some juice in her fridge. He’d be too hungry to complain if she messed it up.

She’d need to make some calls- it would be better for him if he had friends when he woke up.

~

Jordan tried not to react when Beth opened the door.

The other woman had dark circles under her eyes, her hair looked a wreck, and she looked like she’d lost ten pounds in the little over two hours since she’d been off shift. Though that might be the sweatshirt and oversized flannels.

(Wasn’t the sweatshirt one of TC’s?)

“He showed up about ten minutes before I called,” Beth said, rubbing her hands on the pants. There was a rusty stain that Jordan was knew was blood covering an alarming amount of thigh. “I thought one of my cousins showed up- they do that a bit. But then I opened the door, and he was… slumped there.”

“Why didn’t you bring him into the hospital? Call an ambulance?” Topher asked, shooting her an annoyed look as he tried to limp through the door. “Beth, Jesus, you aren’t this irresponsible…”

“He was bitten,” Beth said, and something really, really weird was in her face. “Did he tell you about the bones they found?”

“Yeah,” Topher said, trying to look over her. “What does that have to do with it?”

“When you say bitten…” Jordan floundered, trying to find a way around this. She jabbed two fingers into her neck. Topher, who had clearly been less observant and/or watched far fewer horror movies, raised his eyebrows.

“Really?” he asked. He paused, thought about the third party in this conversation, and groaned. “We are not telling my daughter.”

“Not that side of the Twilight coin,” Beth said, stepping aside. Topher went into the room, studying a sleeping TC and ignoring the large, annoyed looking cat that was blinking at them from on top of the couch.

“Really, that’s what you go with?” Toph asked.

“I debated going with Universal Horror, but then I realized that you might think TC turned into a fish man,” Beth said, a smile flickering. “He’ll live.”

“That’s not saying he’ll be fine,” Topher pointed out. “Couldn’t you…?” He tried to wriggle his nose, and she sighed.

“It rewrites your DNA,” she said, tiredly. She ruffled a hand through TC’s hair, and Jordan tried not to show her surprise.  “It also works pretty quickly, and he must have driven himself from wherever he was attacked. I couldn’t undo what had already done, and anything I did would have caused him more pain.”

“Okay,” Jordan said, focusing on the fact that TC was as helped as he could be, and that Beth had called them over for a reason. “So how can we help?”

TC chose that moment to let out a groan, raising his head a bit as he blinked. “What hit me?”

“...so,” Beth said, clapping her hands together. “Who wants to tell him?”

She grinned helplessly when they all shot her a look.

“Worth a shot. So, TC, the good news is that it wasn’t a vampire, I was wrong,” she said, clapping her hands together. “So no worries about sun allergies.”

“I vaguely remember a really big dog that... wasn’t a dog, was it?” he asked, thunking his head back on the pillow. “Reminded me of…” He stopped, clearly reminded of how the others didn’t know about the Stark sisters.

“Not them, they are in New York,” Beth said. “Unfortunately. And Jon is up north somewhere, chasing down a human trafficking ring. Which do apparently at least run through San Antonio. And some of the less… scrupulous trafficking types would probably not ask questions, not with magic to grease the wheels for them.” She sighed. “I’ll ask my brother. It would explain why Rosie- she’s in charge of the wolves around here- why she didn’t know.”  

“Is this what killed those hikers?” Topher asked, and Jordan shot him a look.

“Probably,” TC tried to get up, winced, and let Beth pull him up. “I’m probably going to need a lot of body work on the bike, and I’m not sure why it stopped.”

Beth blushed a tiny, tiny bit, and no one chose to call her on it.

“Also, how long is it gonna take for me to be on my feet?” he asked, blinking a bit and leaning an alarming amount of the poor woman.

“A lot less time then it should, my brother,” Topher said, staring at the bloodied towels on the couch. “How bad was it originally?”

“Well, his guts were intact,” Beth mused. “Tee, we are going to my kitchen, and you are sitting down while I get you food. You’re going to need it.” She blew a bit of her hair out of face. “And I really, really need coffee.”

“Do I get coffee?” TC was grinning a bit, and seemed to be a bit steadier on his feet.

“No, coffee is for people who don’t try to give me a heart attack,” Topher raised his eyebrows.

“So no one gets coffee, then,” Jordan pointed out.

Beth gave her a wounded look, and Topher nodded. “I get the coffee, because I have three kids and just came back to work.”

“It’s okay, Beth, we’ll get you coffee later,” TC promised. “As long as you share.”

“We do remember that this is my kitchen, right? I didn’t just forget that?” she asked, plaintively.

“I think I get a half-share at this point,” TC argued.

“No, you just eat… oh, wait, no, you’ve been buying the food,” Beth bit her lip. “Okay, we’ll share, but you do dishes every so often.”

“Good luck,” Jordan muttered. She knew that one from experience.

TC gave her an evil look. “Deal.”

Of course, he also liked to prove people wrong...


End file.
